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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23199607">Glinting in the Sun (or, Zuko's Terrible, Very Bad, No Good Idea)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/neuronary/pseuds/neuronary'>neuronary</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, MuffinLance, Towards the Sun, this exists because of coronavirus, zuko and azula being little shits</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:14:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,122</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23199607</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/neuronary/pseuds/neuronary</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Iroh challenges for the throne, Zuko has a very bad, terrible, no good idea.</p>
<p>(Divergence from ch. 15 of TtS by muffinlance</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Azula &amp; Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>113</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2312</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Finished111, avataner, avatar tingz</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Glinting in the Sun (or, Zuko's Terrible, Very Bad, No Good Idea)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/gifts">MuffinLance</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/19252807">Towards the Sun</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/pseuds/MuffinLance">MuffinLance</a>.
        </li>

    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>"Fire Lord Zuko. Under Agni's sight and before the court, I challenge you for the dragon throne."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Uncle?" Zuko thought he spoke but maybe he hadn't said anything at all, because Uncle wasn't answering, wasn't listening.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This is my right as Iroh, son of Fire Lady Ilah and Fire Lord Azulon, Grandson of Mizura and Sozin, whose line is pure and descended from Agni."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This… this isn't funny."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The terms are until surrender. The time—"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Zuko felt empty. He felt like laughing. At the surreal circumstances, at the complete lunacy of Uncle’s words because he wasn’t even technically the Fire Lord, he was a regent who couldn’t even firebend. He was standing in for the proper Fire Lord without her permission because the royal guard had dragged him out in the dead of night to crown him </span>
  <em>
    <span>as a regent</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wasn’t the Fire Lord. The worst-best idea he could possibly have flitted across his brain and the rest of the world fell into shadows and Zuko remembered to breathe away the black spots in his vision.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Heal him, Sugar Queen!” Toph was shoving at the waterbender.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s fine.” Zuko’s voice came out wheezy and a bit too high but his advisors were gracious enough to ignore. “I accept your challenge, Uncle. I believe,” his breath caught and the room swayed slightly, “that this meeting is over. Guards, please escort the Avatar and his group to their rooms.” The walls were starting to look the way long grass did when it was particularly windy. “Miss Bei Fong, I would like to offer you employment here, and your own private rooms for the night.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Toph looked genuinely taken aback. “Huh. Uh... I’m good, thanks. For the rooms. I’ll think about the job offer later. It’s a lot. Are you gonna see a healer? ‘Cause your heart is going crazy and I really think you should.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I… fine.” Zuko had meant to say more words, but his head felt upside down and twisty and they wouldn’t come out. One of the guards darted for the door and took off at a sprint down the corridor. Wonderful.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My Lord, might I suggest you sit down?” The advisor directly to Zuko’s left… what was his name? Wei something? “My Lord?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure.” Zuko did his best to make it look graceful.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The palace doctor was suddenly feeling for his pulse and shouting at people. He sounded a bit muffled.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey. Hey, stay with me. Here, chew this.” Something bitter was shoved into his mouth and Zuko chewed, because at last he was given a simple instruction. It was something he could do.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Breathe in.” Zuko breathed in. “And out again. Good, okay, alright.” The world came back into focus. “Keep doing that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I need to go… I need to speak with Fire Lord Azula.” The whole room went quiet. Zuko really hoped Iroh wasn’t still here and tried to ignore the fact he’d gone from ‘Uncle’ to ‘Iroh’ in the space of a heart attack.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I would advise, as a medical professional, that you wait on that for now, my Lord.” The healer sounded scared.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t have time for that. Zuko forced himself up and made sure he walked fast enough that he didn’t lose his balance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Please, send up some tea. I imagine we’re going to need it.” He could feel the unease radiating off of the servants.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Azula was going to kill him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(He’d rather her than Iroh.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Azula had gotten used to having to summon her brother. He was far too busy running the country for her to ever simply drop by.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Except now, apparently. Looking completely ridiculous. And wearing her crown. Maybe she could shoot lightning at him for it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You have better breakdowns than me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then again… flattery got you everywhere in life.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And the Avatar can take people’s bending away and he did it to D- to Ozai and I think he’s going to try to do it to you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ozai had abandoned them. She’d known about that for a long time, she just hadn’t thought about </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span>. A why that was somehow even worse. Breath control reigned as her inner flame faltered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And Iroh challenged me for the throne and I accepted but I can’t bend and I’m not even the Fire Lord, so I was thinking that maybe you could. Maybe.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course you did, Dum-dum. At least he’s finally made his move. I was thinking he was going to die first.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was sort of heartbreaking how naive Zuzu was. Azula took a deep, patient breath and explained.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He was always planning on taking the throne, Zuzu, he just needed us out of the way first. Me, for political reasons, you as revenge. Probably.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Revenge?” Agni, he was slow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lu Ten’s death wasn’t an </span>
  <em>
    <span>accident</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Zuzu. Anyway, that doesn’t matter now - stop wheezing, you have better breath control than that - because we need to plan. Sit.” Zuko sat. Azula was good at training humans. (Ty Lee and Mai were just outliers that she wasn’t thinking about right now.) “You need to meditate, your breathing is all over the place.” Azula needed to make sure that the Avatar couldn’t get into this room. (Since when could the Avatar take away </span>
  <em>
    <span>Agni’s gift</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Was one twelve-year-old really that powerful?) (Azula was not panicking even in the slightest, she was carefully examining the facts.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you doing?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t talk when you’re meditating, idiot.” Azula wrenched the broken mirror (the one that no one had ever bothered cleaning up so it cut her cheek and her feet until she set the little shards on fire) across to the window facing the courtyard. It was quickly backed up with a dresser and the small tea table.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>barricading us in</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you were about to fight in an Agni Kai that you had to win and you had the Avatar on your side, what might you do to ensure your victory?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Zuzu went suitably pale. “Carry on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Meditate</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Or I’ll burn the other side of your face off.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You need sleep, you look terrible.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll be fine, Lala.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t care about how you’ll be. I care about how you’ll look. I won’t fight next to such an obvious mess.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine. Wait, ‘next to’? What do you mean ‘next to’? Stop laughing. What are you talking about?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Azula did not stop laughing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Prince-General Iroh first realised something was horribly wrong when he saw the horrified face of his student. Far too horrified. He steeled himself as he turned, ready for anything but what he saw.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fire Lord Zuko’s face was grim.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fire Lord Azula’s smile glinted like the crown in her hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Long time, no see, Uncle.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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